Peace Our
New-birth Right!
Sermon for Sunday December 7, 2008
1. Good Morning! Let’s pray.
O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations
of our hearts be pleasing to You O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen!
2. Opening Comments: Well today’s scripture readings focus on our
preparing the way for the coming of our Lord and John the Baptist was clearly
the man called to do this at Christ’s first coming and the inference is that we
are now to do the same in anticipation of Christ’s Second Coming.
But as I reflected on what our Lord wanted to say to us this morning it
was the Advent Candle readings and prayer that caught my heart. Our focus then this morning is on “peace.”
It must also be noted that our Lectionary
In our First
And finally in our Epistle and Gospel
readings the theme of “prepare” for His home coming cry out to us.
These promises of homecoming bring deep comfort to the hearts of those
of us who yearn for His second coming.
But let us now focus on the Advent Candle readings and prayer for they really zero into the very heart of the peach – that it
is ultimately a gift from God to us.
As they said, “Peace is a gift that we must be prepared for. God gives us the gift of peace when we turn
to Him in faith.”
Jesus is the Prince of Peace.”
He said in the Gospel of John chapter 14:
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. John 14:27
Let me then ask us all a few framing questions:
·
Are you at peace today?
·
Do you regularly experience
“peace?”
·
Do you really seek after it? Is it easy or hard to find for you? Is it elusive?
·
Do you have any peace?
·
Do you crave peace?
·
Do you yearn
for real inner peace?
·
So what is your history with the
reality – the experience, of “peace?”
No I ask these questions to engage you in the reflection. I hope and pray that each of you has taken a
quick interior audit of your being and discovered where you stand with regard
to this fundamental human need.
Peace is such a magnificent experience – true peace is so so elusive. Listen
again to my concluding Benediction at the conclusion of this service:
The
Peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the
knowledge and love of God, and of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. And, the blessing of God Almighty + the
Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit be with you
for always. Amen.
Clearly God
thinks “peace” is pivotal to our nature since He has made sure that you receive
this blessing from Him at least once every week.
So . . . peace is a fundamental need of all human beings.
Now let me
speak specifically to the younger amongst us just for a moment:
Is the subject of “peace” somewhat boring to you? As I reflected upon this it occurred to me
that were I a younger person I might turn off about now since I’m after life -
enthusiastically!!!!! and the idea of peaceful
passivity just doesn’t hold me! Peace
and passivity are for older people – but not for me!
I would humbly suggest that even in the vitality of our younger years
we need and can find peace. Peace you
see has very little to do with what’s happening outside of us! Rather “peace” is a psychological and
spiritual reality that comes from within.
Yes, it can be enhanced by a peaceful exterior but not
necessarily. I can be utterly at peace
in the middle of Macy’s on a sale day – if and only if I am at peace with God
and myself!
3. Ah – now we begin to focus
in! Peace comes with the advent of the Prince of Peace in us! As we draw ever closer to our Lord His peace
becomes ours.
Let’s really examine peace and try to uncover its secrets shall we?
What is it that robs you and me of any peace?
Its fear isn’t it – it’s the fear of losing something dear to us! our peace is forever
dependent upon our sense of security from loss!
Fear is the cardinal enemy to peace and if we’re to find peace we’re
going to have to deal with fear.
Think about that for a minute will you . . . When was your peace
disturbed this last week? Think about it
– try to isolate the source of your fears in each of the instances when you
lost your sense of peace.
This, by the way, it a very good exercise – for by doing it you are
identifying the idols in your life – those things that your terrified of losing
including your own life. Anything that
gets between you and God – is a false god or an idol.
We all have them – I have them. My pride, my professionalism, my scholarship, my spirituality – O
how pathetic I really am. How
vulnerable is my peace!
How about you . . . Please think about it
for a moment will you. Really think about it. It’s always beneficial for us to look at the
other gods in our lives.
Age often plays a part in this – older people often have other god’s
than younger people. Our temperaments
have some effect also – the sanguine or excitable person may tend to be drawn
to idols that keep them floating on the winds of high emotion while the
melancholic person would tend to respond to the gods the promise security and
so on.
Identifying what gods stand between you and the real God is vitally
important if you are going to cooperate with the real God in His ultimate
destruction of any gods who would separate you from Him!
4. Focusing in: Well now we’re getting to the real nub of our
reflection. For me perhaps the most
perfect statement on peace came from St. Peter in His first Letter. He wrote:
1John 4:18 There is no fear in love.
But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The
one who fears is not made perfect in love.
Ah! Did you hear that – “There
is ‘NO’ fear in love. But perfect love
drives out fear!”
Now don’t get hung up on the word – “perfect” in the sense that you
think that since your love isn’t perfect you’re never going to get rid of your
fear.
The Greek word for “perfect” is “telios” and it literally means – having reached its end – complete, perfect, mature, pertaining to being truly and completely genuine or pertaining to an adult human being.
What this
tells me is this: if I have any fear it’s because my love – that which
ultimately motivates me – has some work needed and as this work is done any
fear will be driven out of me by this love.
So what we’re talking about here is “mature love” – love that has gone through a purgation – a time of purging. It’s the sort of love that begins at marriage or at the beginning of a friendship and it matures through many joys and disappointments to emerge as refined and pure! It’s this love that literally drives fear out of us!
Do you want peace – perfect peace – then learn how
to love!
Show me a real lover and I will show you a fearless person!
Now understand
we’re not talking here about people who have stopped fearing because life has
lost meaning . . . NO – we’re talking about people for whom life has
infinite meaning and worthy of infinite sacrifice. Love always sacrifices.
The Greek for “drives” by the way – in the sense that love drives fear
out of us - is “bellow” and it literally means – to throw! Love, mature love, literally throws fear out
on it bum! – To put it crudely!
You see “fear”
can’t exist in the same place as love and since fear robs us of our peace we
must lean how to love to apprehend our full measure of God’s peace!
As the Chapter
on love says:
1Cor. 13:4 Love is patient, love is
kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not
self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no
record of wrongs. 6 Love does not
delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
1Cor. 13:8 Love never fails. But where
there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be
stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy
in part, 10
but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a
child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a
child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12 Now we see but a poor reflection as
in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall
know fully, even as I am fully known.
1Cor. 13:13 And now these three remain:
faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
6. Application: Now as many of you know I have been working to apprehend God more and more in my minute by minute life. I personally use the Jesus Prayer – Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!” to do this. I have also incorporated a suggestions from Frank Laubach and Brother Lawrence (suggest the book “Practicing His Presence”).
Earlier this week I found myself envisioning myself sitting beside our Lord in a beautiful garden when the thought suddenly struck me – you envision me but do you love me – do you feel My love?
I suddenly realized that my Lord was breaking through into my very thoughts and challenging me to see Him as He is not only as I can envision Him.
I stopped what I was doing immediately and invited Him to reveal Himself to me . . .
Wow! When you open yourself up to Him He may very well overwhelm you . . . and that’s what happened to me. It wasn’t overwhelming but I was flooded – suffused with a sense of deep and abiding love – His love for me and I then found myself responding to Him by my love.
He really authors our love!
It was then that the passage from the first letter of
1John 4:7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
Truly as
Peace – your peace and mine is to be found in our capacity to love!
Have you ever
fully opened your heart and mind to our Lord – to His love? The sure way to know this is to discern if
there is any Fear or lack of Peace in you and if there is then you can know for
certain that your love needs to grow.
The question
remaining then is this – How to grow in love?
And the answer
is as old as the Christian faith – Jesus in us brings His perfect love!
It’s Jesus’
perfect love – not our perfect love - that throws out fear and establishes His
peace in us!
Do you really
want peace? Then please bow your heads
and let me pray for us that God’s love would so permeate our spirits that all
fear would be driven from our souls!
Amen!
Let’s pray . .
.
Is. 9:6
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.